


Never In Her Favour

by sungabraverday



Series: Maysilee Donner: Victor [6]
Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-18
Updated: 2012-02-18
Packaged: 2017-11-13 01:03:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sungabraverday/pseuds/sungabraverday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reaping was never fun for a victor who was also a rebel. But this year was particularly bad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never In Her Favour

Her brother-in-law began to read out the list of past Victors in District Twelve. “Charlie Thyress,” he said, and then, “Maysilee Donner,” and as she had done twenty-three times before, Maysilee walked onto the stage with her chin held high. She waved one hand in acknowledgment, not at the people in the square, who didn’t need it, but at the cameras. She took her seat beside Effie Trinket, smoothing her skirt beneath her neatly, the image of the perfect Victor.

The image may have been perfect, but Maysilee’s mind was a mess at best. Who would they choose this year to drive the point home to her that she must not put a toe out of line? Bran had escaped the reaping ball alive, but she had two more sons with their names available, and the Capitol would not want to let that opportunity for entertainment go idly by. And that had not stopped them from taking her niece, little Sandra Undersee, two years ago as well.

The Mayor welcomed Effie Trinket to the podium, and the Capitol woman took to it gratefully. She looked out over the square, where rows upon rows of children stood, waiting to hear whether their names would be called. While she was as excited as always, not a single other soul in the square was, and Maysilee suspected herself to be the least excited of them all.

“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!” Effie began, filling the square with crackling sound. She spoke briefly about what an honour it was to be there, and she meant it - being an escort at the Hunger Games was one of the most coveted jobs in the Capitol, and while District Twelve wasn’t terribly glamorous, it was still an honour for her. Not for anyone else, of course, but that was, as the Mayor’s speech had reminded them all, the point.

Effie then moved on to the real reason they were all there, the drawing. “The time has come to select one courageous young man and woman for the honour of representing District Twelve in the 74th Annual Hunger Games.” It was the same thing they said in every District in Panem, of course. It all was.

Everyone in the square held their breath. Who would they be losing, and might one of them make it home? For Maysilee, and for all her fellow Victors, this meant different. Which two unfortunate children were they going to have to prepare for death, and how would they try to arrange it so that one of them might possibly make it home? It was the worst possible question to ask yourself on an annual basis, and yet here Maysilee was asking it for the twenty-third time.

“Ladies first,” the chipper Capitol woman pronounced.

Maysilee hated that line the most of all. They weren't ladies, they were girls, and being forced into killing so many other young people in the arena wasn't going to make them into ladies either. It would make them into husks if they were lucky, and monsters or dead if they were not. And this was District Twelve. They weren't going to be lucky. They hadn't been in almost twenty-five years.

Effie’s fingers lifted a slip from the reaping bowl and smoothed it out. “Primrose Everdeen,” she read.

Maysilee froze to her chair, blood draining from her face. No. Not Yarrow's little girl. The girl would die. Just twelve years old, and a healer at heart, like her mother. And she was certain the shock of the loss would throw Yarrow into a fit of depression, exactly as she had done after her husband had died. Were they determined to harm everyone Maysilee had ever loved, not once, but over and over again? Was there any way it could simply be the odds, never in her favour?

“Prim!” Maysilee’s fear was disrupted by a voice in the crowd, screaming. “I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute.” Katniss Everdeen took her sister’s place.

Her terror dissipated. She could work with Katniss. It might not be enough to save her, or to keep Yarrow above, but it would be an easier task than with Prim. The girl had always been lively, and she had a real skill at hunting, based on the game that she had bought from her. She thought that she could possibly bring Katniss home, and the hollow in the pit of her stomach eased.

Effie said some further words, presumably congratulatory, and a deathly silence filled the square. There was supposed to be applause, but there was not a single clap. Instead, hands rose in salute. They were joined by others, until nearly everyone in the district is wishing her a beloved goodbye. Maysilee couldn’t join, of course, not in front of the cameras, not while she was trying to escape this string of punishments with good behaviour, but she took it as a good sign. Maybe soon she would be able to give them what she'd promised all those years ago - a show they wouldn't forget. A smile twitched on the corner of her lip, fighting and succeeding in escaping from Maysilee’s mask of absolute indifference. She stood from her chair and walked over to greet Katniss, shaking her hand, and trying to smile reassuringly.

The reaping of the boys came next. Effie reached her hand into the bowl, and running her fingers over several slips of paper before lifting one up. Maysilee knew before she even opened the slip what the name was going to be.

“Peeta Mellark.”

If the square had been quiet before, now it was silent. The only noises were the footsteps of her youngest son as walked up the steps of the stage. Maysilee moved forward to greet him as she had Katniss, offering him a handshake and a smile.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the tributes of District Twelve!” Effie was delighted. With a volunteer and a Victor’s son as tributes, this time District Twelve would be putting on a fabulous show.

Effie stepped back, and the Mayor returned to the podium to lead the Treaty of Treason. Maysilee mouthed along obediently, but not a single vowel crossed her lips. Her image only went so far, and in front of her, Peeta and Katniss did much the same.

Her thoughts were elsewhere as she calculated how she would have to choose between the two who were shaking hands. The Capitol could be brutal if you stepped out of line, but this, now, was far too much to bear.

Perhaps it was just that the odds were never in her favour.

As the anthem played, she dismissed that thought.


End file.
